


William

by SwagolasThranduilion



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:57:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwagolasThranduilion/pseuds/SwagolasThranduilion
Summary: He thought suicide was the answer. He thought he'd rid himself of his suffering. But this was only the beginning of his life.





	1. Death

William

Life is an odd thing. A thing full of pain, joy, and everything in between. Love. Lust. Hatred. Despair. I could try to name more uplifting emotions, but the negative ones I am most familiar with. My life was nothing. I couldn’t seem to please anyone no matter how hard I tried. My teachers, my parents, my so-called “friends”.

I tried so hard to be perfect, to be a son my parents could be proud of. But my straight B’s weren’t good enough. And it seemed like my teachers were all conspiring against me, as no matter how much work I put in, no matter how hard I studied, I could never get past a B in any subject.

My parents assumed I was just lazy. My father, the horrid brute, seem determined to beat the laziness out of me. I felt worthless. I just wasn’t good enough. I fell into a deep pit of despair, and I didn’t see the point in letting my miserable life continue anymore. So, I did what anyone would. I committed suicide.

At the age of twenty, William T Spears died from a single self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

Good riddance.

I didn’t die instantly though. I messed up the shot, and it took a while. Another of my failings. It took me forty minutes to die. And it was painful, incredibly painful. If only I had been more accurate I could have saved myself the pain. As I lay there, bleeding to death, I felt I was no longer alone. There was a strange fellow looming over me with a scythe. Death coming to take me, I assumed. Long silvery hair, dressed all in black. He spoke to me.

“William T Spears, died November 8th, 1785, self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Suicide.”

The strange figure knelt down. I was shaking. I didn’t know if it was fear or pain.

“It’s alright, William.” The man laid a cold hand across my bloody forehead. “It’s almost time.”

Then, my life was flashing before my eyes, flying by so quickly I could barely keep up. Each moment of my life played out before me, like some sickening depressing play. I closed my eyes, I couldn’t bear to watch. I didn’t want to see the repeat of the misery I endured.

“Rest now, William T Spears, for when you wake, you’ll be in neither heaven nor hell.”

 _Was I to be condemned to purgatory for my sinful death?_ Perhaps. I didn’t even consider the consequences of my suicide. I just wanted it all to end. What an oversight, no wonder I viewed myself as useless. There was no going back for me at this point, that I knew. Death had come for me.

 

* * *

 

 

It seemed only moments later that I opened my eyes again, only to see nothing. A ceiling. A very blurry ceiling. I touched my head where the bullet had entered my skull. No wound. I could feel scar tissue though. _What on earth…?_

I didn’t know where I was, disorientated I sat up. There was a figure before me, although I couldn’t see their face as my vision was distorted.

“Where am I?”

My voice sounded different, felt different. This didn’t even feel real. I knew I was saying the words, but it didn’t feel like I was.

“You’re in a safe place, William. You committed suicide. Such an atrocity must be paid for.”

Atrocity? It was _my_ life to take.

“Throwing away the life that was bestowed upon you is a grievous sin, William.”

“Am I here to be punished?”

“Yes. As we all are.”

I looked down to my hands, now clad in strange black gloves.

“Forgive me, but I cannot see very well. Is this a punishment?”

“Oh, apologies, I forgot to give these to you, hehehe!”

I frowned. Why did this man mock me by laughing? He gave me a set of spectacles. With shaking hands, I placed them on my face, the room now coming into focus. I took in my surroundings. The walls were white and blank. So was the ceiling, and the floor I was on. It contrasted starkly with what I was now wearing. I was dressed much like the man before me, entirely in black. I stood up, my legs weak.

“I’ll ask again, where am I?”

“Like I said, hehehe, the place you’ll be punished.”

“I want to know where that is exactly! Is this purgatory? And who the devil are you anyway!?”

“Ohohoheheha. All in good time, William, all in good time. You’ve been given the gift…of immortality.”

_Immortality…was this some kind of joke? When I wanted nothing more than to die, I’m forced to live an immortal life? This is the punishment for my suicide?_

“But I-…I just wanted to die…I don’t want this; I don’t want to live forever!”

The old man laughed.

“You don’t really have a choice!”

He turns on his heel to leave, and just before he closes the door, he turns back again.

“Welcome to the Reaper Dispatch Centre, William T Spears.”

With that, he closes and locks the door.

_Reaper…? As in…GRIM REAPER? Oh no…what had I done?_


	2. Rebirth

I was left there for a long time, in that bright room. I suppose it was to come to terms with what had happened to me. My heart wept for my decision, but I did not outwardly. There was a mirror on the wall. _Did I really want to see what I had become?_ I sighed. Morbid curiosity and all that. I approached the mirror. I didn’t look much different, but the closer I got, the changes were apparent. My skin was very fair and pale. My hair darker than it had been when I was alive. My eyes…god, my eyes…they were unnatural. Both green and yellow at the same time. I didn’t look real. This was not me.

I reached out and touched the mirror, feeling the smooth plane of glass, cool beneath my gloved digit. My mirrored self did the same.

_What was I?_

The door unlocked and opened. It was the man from before, except behind him was a few other people, ones who looked very much lost, just as I know I did.

“Come along, William. Time to join the rest of your classmates for your orientation.”

_Orientation? Classmates?_ This sounded very much like a school then. Bother.

I followed along behind the group, though I wasn’t the last one trailing. There was another, with flame red hair. If I thought I looked lost and confused, I was nothing compared to him.

“Sutcliff, do keep up!”

“Oh…uh…yes, sorry, of course, sorry!”

The red haired boy (he couldn’t have been any older than eighteen) stuttered, picking up his pace to bypass me and re-join the group.

We were a miserable looking mob. We passed others in the hallway, dressed much the same, however many had on different spectacles. I risked a glance up at one person, and immediately drew my eyes back down to my feet. Some of them were terrifying.

We were ushered into another small room, and told to sit at the desks positioned in rows. The room remained silent for a while after everyone was seated.

“Good afternoon. My name is Edward Parsons. I will be your instructor. You all have one thing in common. Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what that is?”

The man had just entered the room, and was walking up towards the front. He seemed a stern individual, like he would take no nonsense. There was silence.

“No? I’ll tell you then. You a _ll_ are guilty of taking your own lives. As such, you will be serving an eternal punishment for the crime.”

The silence was deafening, until the red haired boy spoke up.

“Surely that’s unfair? I didn’t ask to be born the way I was, but so many people seemed deadset against the idea of an individual such as myself even existing. I had no _choice.”_

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Grell. Grell Sutcliff.”

“Well then Grell, Grell Sutcliff. You’ve come to learn that life is unfair, yes? Now you’ll be learning that the afterlife is even more unfair. You have been sent to us to train as grim reapers. You will be responsible for reviewing the lives of humans destined to die, and for the collection of their souls. Not all of you, however, will be in active duty. That is what this aptitude test today is for, to determine what department you will end up working for. Take one and pass it along.”

I sat there, in shock at what I’d just learned. _What a cruel punishment…_ it didn’t make much sense to me at the time, why a suffering soul whose only escape was death at their own hand, would be forced into such an existence. I looked at the paper in front of me, picking up the quill and dipping it into the inkwell. These questions were fairly simple, actually.

Once the test was done and the papers collected, we were taken on a tour of the facilities. I soon learned the organisation is divided into administrative departments.

The management division is responsible for overseeing the dispatch members, and ensuring that their conduct is proper and acceptable. They will retrieve and discipline any reaper in violation of the rules or their orders.

The retrieval division is responsible for the collection of human souls. They dispatch active duty reapers into the field to review and collect human souls.

The personnel division sends out reinforcements to the field when necessary, reserved for when a disaster occurs and many lives are lost.

The administrative division controls the use of “death scythes”, and a reaper must obtain permission to use and modify theirs. I learned that a death scythe is a reaper’s first and foremost tool, used to sever the memories and soul from the body of a dying human.

I learned many things that day.

I learned to keep quiet and accept my fate. There was no going back now. This was to be my life, there was no point in wallowing in self-pity over it. I was a reaper in training.


	3. Training

The training wasn’t easy. I found the physical side of things very demanding, and I could only just about keep up with my classmates. The red haired one, Grell, his practical skills were astounding. It seemed to come naturally to him, like he was meant to be a reaper. We were all issued with small sickles, as our training scythes.

I was partnered with Grell one day, for a hand to hand combat training exercise. I hand no experience of fighting, apart from the brutal beatings my father would give me, and even then I never fought back. And I knew Grell wasn’t going to go easy on me. I’d seen the state some of his previous combat partners had been left in.

 

* * *

 

I was right. I was pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic. I couldn’t even defend myself against him properly, I couldn’t even block a single punch, no matter how hard I tried. My eye was blackened, my lip split and bloodied. Grell stopped only when I begged him to, begged him to stop hurting me, like a child. He found it amusing that I was so defenceless.

_I’ll show him,_ I thought to myself, _I’ll show you next time, Grell Sutcliff._

I looked at myself in the mirror when I returned to my room.

And laughed.

I just laughed at myself.

What a pitiful sight I was.

No wonder I’d killed myself.

Waste of space.

Useless.

Weak.

I had to do better.

I had to try harder.

I wasn’t good enough, and I would have to change that myself.

No matter how long, no matter how many hours of training I had to put in, I would get better.

I would succeed. I would not allow myself to fail, not this time. It was not an option.

William T Spears would _not_ be a name associated with failure, not in the afterlife as well.

I would improve my grades, bring myself from a C up to a B, maybe even an A.

I saw the determined look on my face in the mirror.

And I broke down.

Why was I deluding myself into thinking I could amount to anything? I threw myself down on my bed, unable to stop myself from crying out. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to be here. I just wanted there to be nothing, I wanted nothing more than to actually be dead, not living some sort of twisted half-life.

There came a knock at my door. I scrambled to tidy myself up, wiping my face and fixing my glasses.

“C-come in!”

The door opened, and standing there was Sutcliff. He came into the room and closed the door.

“Ooh look at you. I made a right mess of your pretty face, William. Sorry about that.”

I frowned. _Pretty face?_

“I’ve come to fix you up. Parsons came to me after the combat class and gave me a right ticking off. I was too violent with you.”

“No…I’m just weak and useless. I’m sorry you got in trouble, you were just doing your best to prove that you have what it takes.”

Grell sighed, pouring some antiseptic solution onto a handkerchief and pressing it to my busted lip. It stung. I winced.

“Sorry. And William, you’re not weak. You just haven’t been trained to fight is all. To be quite honest, I don’t see the point in the combat classes, we don’t exactly have to sight souls using hand to hand combat anyway.”

“That’s true but it is part of our final grade, in the practical skills section of the exam.”

Grell stops, pausing to think for a moment.

“Then…why don’t I train you to fight? Properly, outside of the classroom. Think of it as an apology for bashing your face up!”

“Are you sure about that? I’m a bit…useless…”

“Yes. We’ll start tomorrow after our ethics class.”

I nodded, shaking the red haired recruit’s hand. Thus an unlikely alliance as formed. Or so I thought.


	4. Demon

 

My training was going well. My grades in all areas were up, I was even up to a B in practical skills. I could almost say I was happy. Almost. But not quite. I still had this aura of depression hanging over me. Often at night, it would cloud my thoughts and prevent me from sleeping. It wasn’t quite a sadness. I don’t know how else to describe it other than a numb feeling. I kept it hidden though. I was becoming quite adept at masking my emotions. There would be the rare occasion that I would cry myself to sleep, but surely everyone does that every once in a while?

Keeping my emotions under lock and key was going to be the only way I could survive. I couldn’t have my negative energy affecting everyone around me as well. Many of the new recruits seemed to settle in well. They were happy-go-lucky in spirits. I could pretend, for their sakes. It was a difficult façade to keep up, day in, day out. I had to let it break down at some point, just for my own sanity.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed being around the others, the classes were good at distracting me from my own self destructive thoughts, but trying to maintain any sort of friendships was damn near impossible. People around here just seemed to take an instant dislike to me, for some reason. I don’t know what it was. Just because I had a cold and uncaring outward appearance doesn’t mean I’m entirely unapproachable, does it?

Anyway, there I was, crying alone in my room into a pillow, the very picture of self-loathing and despair, my face a mess, liquid of some sort coming out of every facial orifice. You know, looking as beautiful as a supermodel. (I know, I’m a master wordsmith.) Someone knocked on my door. I sat up quickly, with no time to fix my face. They came right in. It was Grell. And he was in a panic.

“William you have to get up, we’re all being called to arms, there’s a demon loose in the soul vault and-…you look atrocious.”

I got up, grabbing my scythe holster and fastening it around my waist.

“A demon!? Forget about me, go! I’ll be along!”

Grell nods, backing out of the room and running along to where everyone else is. I put on my shoes, dashing out of the room, where a stream of my comrades are making their way to the soul vaults.

_Damn demons._

From what we’d been taught about demons, they are vile beasts of hell, intent on consuming human souls, either by forming contracts with humans, or by stealing the souls from reapers. I didn’t know what to expect though, upon seeing the creature. He didn’t look like a foul beast. But I knew he was dangerous, particularly with the threat of all the reapers closing in around him. He’d already consumed seven hundred of the souls stored away. Many were dead already, rookies like myself who were too confident in their skills. I kept my distance, because I was scared. As usual. Cowardly. The demon began to change. Shifting from his human-like appearance, into what was definitely a denizen of hell. Horns, curled like a goat, protruded from his midnight black hair, his eyes burned red, and great black wings shadowed him. A dark, evil aura surrounded him, and although I was very close to pissing myself because of how scared I was, I was intrigued.

He was hellspawn, murdering my colleagues, and eating souls. Yet somehow I was both terrified and a little bit aroused. Oh bother. I couldn’t be having that; I was supposed to be repulsed. I repressed the feelings stirring up and joined my fellow recruits in the battle against this demon. It was a difficult battle, and many were hurt, but the demon did eventually relent, and disappear. We lost many souls, and a few reapers as well.

For the next while, the dispatch was a place of misery for everyone, not just for me. The smell of that demon permeated the air, and many of the fully fledged reapers had to work overtime to make up for the souls lost during the demon’s rampage. Everyone was complaining about the horrid stench but…in all honesty, it didn’t smell _bad_ to me. Still, I had to pretend.

I pushed all those thoughts to the back of my mind and locked them away, throwing away the key.

* * *

 

Over the next weeks, our training was intensified, our classes getting longer and more in depth. The final exam was coming up, and our preliminary tests were taking place. Once those were graded, we were called in to the instructor’s office in pairs to get our results. Sutcliff and I were called in together.

Grell had an A average.

I had a B average.

And then we were partnered for our final exam.

He wasn’t happy. The things he said. I stayed respectful to his face but once I was alone…I was just so distraught. I tried my best. It was like being human again, and failing once more for everyone to be angry at me even though I worked so hard. I couldn’t keep myself restrained when I returned to my room. I stared at myself in the mirror and just felt so much overwhelming hatred for the loser looking back at me, I attacked my reflection, shattering the mirror into a million pieces. I continued to pummel the wall, long after the mirror had broken. My knuckles were torn and bleeding, glass embedded in the wounds, the wall had blood on it, and the plaster was cracked and crumbling. I didn’t care. My hatred burned.

I don’t remember how I got into bed that night, but I woke up there the next morning. The sheets were bloodstained and my room was a mess, but today was the day we were to start the observation for our final task. I dragged myself out of bed, ignoring my aching hands, and changed into some clean clothes, securing my scythe around my waist. Grell doesn’t even knock this time, he just opens my door.

“William we need to-…what the hell happened in here?”

His eyes swept over the room, examining the dried blood on the wall, sheets, and then his eyes fall upon my hands.

“Oh for goodness sake, Will! Did you have to go an injure yourself right before our final exam!? As if you being a lower grade than me wasn’t bad enough, you’re also a self-destructive idiot? Honestly!”

I felt myself welling up with anger at that statement. I clenched my hands into fists.

“For your own sake, Grell, _stop it,”_ I hissed.

“Ugh, stop being a drama queen! Come on, we have to go!”

“Me? A drama queen? That’s bloody rich coming from _you_!”

Grell rolled his eyes and stomped out. I followed after him, still seething. I was not going to allow him to get to me, not anymore. I would teach him a lesson he would never forget before our exam was through. He’d have to learn the hard way that I was not to be trifled with anymore.


	5. Exam

We were sent to observe the life of Thomas Wallis, an aspiring novelist. Our task was to, over the course of a month, examine his day to day activities, and decide whether he deserved to die or not.

“The living world is always so filthy…” Grell muttered in disgust, “Ugh…”

We were trying to locate our target, and he was proving difficult to find. I, however, spotted him first, through the open window of his room at the boarding house he stayed in.

“I found him, that’s our man. That’s Thomas Wallis. An amateur novelist.”

“A novelist, eh? How dreadfully typical, he’s probably poor and talentless with no love life to speak of,” Grell dismissed.

That angered me. How he could speak of a human life with such blatant disregard, such…such disrespect. Grell opened the file on Thomas Wallis, ready to mark him for death.

“Well that’s that, this one’s cleared for death.”

I snatched the file from Grell’s hands before he could make the stamp on it. How irresponsible, we were allotted a whole month for this task and he thinks making a decision such as clearing a human for death can be done in five-…no, two minutes?

“We should use all the time allotted to investigate,” I stated calmly, controlling my voice to stop anger wavering it.

“Ohhh my, Mr B Average is talking back, finally.”

His words stung. Grell really was two-faced and spiteful. During our training I thought we had become friends, but now I see him for what he really is, and I don’t like that person at all.

“How fabulous.”

With that, Grell’s scythe was in his hand and he took a swing at me. What the bloody hell was he thinking attacking me like that? Unfortunately for him, the training he gave me was actually not bad. I blocked his swing with my own scythe, holding him off with all my strength. Grell just laughed, showing those awful pointed teeth of his, and slackened his arm, causing me to stumble, and he used that split second of my confusion to forcefully kick me in the gut, straight into the chimney stack behind me. I hit it with a crash, bricks crumbling around me, the force of the impact resulting in me sagging down to the shingles of the rooftop. A trickle of blood dripped down my chin from my mouth, as I had accidentally bitten the inside of my cheek on impact. The pain was intense, I was shaking. Grell hooked his scythe around my throat.

“Well, anything else to say?” He goaded, standing over me with a smug expression.

“They gave us a month to complete the exam,” I choked out, my voice strained, “This is our first screening, I think we should observe him further. If we make a mistake on this, it could ruin both our careers.”

Grell just regarded me with a bored look, turning his face away and retracting his scythe.

“You _are_ dreadfully dull. Do what you like, but I’m telling you now, it’s a bloody waste of both of our time,” He began to walk away before half-turning and glancing at me, “So, when is the collection scheduled for again?”

I started to get up, adjusting my glasses.

“In one month on December 16th, at four o’clock in the afternoon. We should get to work.

 

* * *

 

Thomas Wallis was cleared for death. I took an unconventional approach during the exam, and approached the target, but there was nothing in the guidelines that said we couldn’t go just that. Grell was mortified.

Speaking of Grell, he took a change of character during our experience together. I don’t know what it was. It seemed to come about when we fought again. Yes, again. And I dominated that time. I put him in his place, and he seemed to get some sort of sick, perverse pleasure out of it. All of a sudden, I was “William, _darling”._ Ugh. I think I preferred it when he was actually hitting me and not hitting _on_ me.

Something went wrong when I was reaping Thomas’ soul. His cinematic record began to attack me, the last struggle of a dying soul. In the scuffle, my glasses were knocked off, and as I couldn’t see, the cinematic record attacked me, binding me within its reels. Thomas’ memories flooded into me, I was reliving this human’s best and worst moments as if I was him. It was too much. I could feel the pain and despair of his dying soul. If I was bound like this any longer I was going to die.

Unfortunately for me, it was Grell who rescued me. And now I “owed him one”. I should be thankful to him for saving my life, but I dread to think what he would want in return for his, ugh, “feat of heroism”.

We passed the final exam, I received an A, whilst (to my delight) Grell received a B.

“A B? Are you serious, a bloody B!? I saved his life!”

“That may be the case but you also attacked him. Twice. As a result, your grade as suffered. You’re still qualified to be an active duty reaper, Mr Sutcliff.”

I shook my head, turning and leaving while Grell was still ranting and raving at Mr Parsons. It was time for me to receive my new glasses, specially made for me by the famous Pops.

When I placed those spectacles on my face, I felt a change within myself. Was this…pride? Was I actually proud of my achievement? It was new to me, this feeling. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was smiling. For the first time since my death, I was genuinely smiling. Still, I reined the emotion in, relaxing my face of expression.

I was pleased with myself.

This was the beginning; I was a new man now.

I was William T Spears, junior reaper.


End file.
